Laboratory tests have reached 800Gbps before, but this is the first time it’s gone long distance, covering the 410km between BT’s Adastral Park research centre, near Ipswich in Suffolk, and the BT Tower in London, using equipment from network kit vendor Ciena. The surprising thing is that the test was successful on fibre which was previously not considered good enough to carry 10Gbps.

via BT Lights Up World’s First 800Gbps Fibre Super Channel.

Because the fee is so small, some call it a below-the-line charge because customers aren’t likely to notice it. That aside, it is also provides a way for carriers to advertise a lower fee than customers are actually charged. Presently, AT&T already charges about 50 cents as regulatory cost recovery charge per phone line, something that has been part of the carrier’s bills for about a decade.

via AT&T’s new monthly stealth fee has some crying foul – SlashGear.

Recently, we had a photographer come out to create an inside Google Street View of our HQ so our customers, friends and family – anyone, really – can get a virtual feel for what it is like to work at Rackspace. There’s a ton to see.

via Get An Inside Look At The Rackspace ‘Castle’ Via Google Street View – The Official Rackspace Blog.

Additive manufacturing—the industrial version of 3-D printing—is already used to make some niche items, such as medical implants, and to produce plastic prototypes for engineers and designers. But the decision to mass-produce a critical metal-alloy part to be used in thousands of jet engines is a significant milestone for the technology. And while 3-D printing for consumers and small entrepreneurs has received a great deal of publicity, it is in manufacturing where the technology could have its most significant commercial impact

via 3-D Printing Will Soon Become a Routine Manufacturing Tool | MIT Technology Review.

So, a lot of people are talking about Kim Dotcom’s latest gambit, which was to point out that he holds a patent (US 6,078,908 and apparently others in 12 other countries as well) that covers the basics of two-factor authentication, with a priority date of April of 1997. While interesting, he goes on to point out that he’s never sued over the patent because “I believe in sharing knowledge and ideas for the good of society.”

via Kim Dotcom Threatens To Sue Google, Facebook And Twitter Over 2-Factor Authentication Patent If They Don’t Help Him | Techdirt.

Whereas the internet is an information transporter, the “matternet” will transport…well, matter. These robotic “drones for good” will fly food, medicine, and other essentials to villages seasonally stranded by stormy weather and low quality road infrastructure.

via Matternet Building Quadcopter Drone Network To Transport Supplies | Singularity Hub.

And what about compatibility between MySQL and MariaDB? The MariaDB team works hard to continue with full compatibility with MySQL, and they continue to pull in bug fixes from the source. But the new features (and numbering scheme) suggest that, despite best efforts, the two platforms will increasingly diverge.

via MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Comparison.

Call it security through absurdity: a pair of telecom firms have branded reporters for Scripps News as “hackers” after they discovered the personal data of over 170,000 customers—including social security numbers and other identifying data that could be used for identity theft—sitting on a publicly accessible server. While the reporters claim to have discovered the data with a simple Google search, the firms’ lawyer claims they used “automated” means to gain access to the company’s confidential data and that in doing so the reporters violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with their leet hacker skills.

via Reporters use Google, find breach, get branded as “hackers” | Ars Technica.

Verizon is calling 4G small cells a “complement” to its existing LTE network and distributed antenna system deployments in hard-to-cover areas like building basements. The operator currently has 497 live LTE markets, which represents 95 percent coverage of its existing 3G footprint.

via Light Reading – Verizon Taps AlcaLu & Ericsson for 4G Small Cells.

With the help of independent privacy and security researcher Ashkan Soltani, Ars used Skype to send four Web links that were created solely for purposes of this article. Two of them were never clicked on, but the other two—one beginning in HTTP link and the other HTTPS—were accessed by a machine at 65.52.100.214, an IP address belonging to Microsoft.

via Think your Skype messages get end-to-end encryption? Think again | Ars Technica.